


We Sang Farewell

by DynamicKea



Series: Fluxed Lalna AU [3]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Apocalypse, Dimension Travel, Falling Into The Flux Sphere, Gen, London Bridge is falling down, Major Castle Destruction, Nagas are Mean, Nursery Rhymes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 08:33:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3685422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DynamicKea/pseuds/DynamicKea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world is empty now. Nothing is left to keep the nagas from their feast. Nano and Lalna are all that remain, safe in their little blue sphere of light. But do not worry. The nagas shall dine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Sang Farewell

**Author's Note:**

> I would highly recommend reading the prior parts of this series.

The landscape was abandoned.

Each little hill was bare. Every thread of grass that remained was beginning to brown and stiffen. The hills too were brown, dirt being whipped up in the harsh winds. The trees were hollow things, broken, falling apart. Not even the termites and their larvae were there to feast as the trees rotted. Their roots drank the poison seeping through the land.

Scales slithered below.

Under the land, twisting tunnels bled outwards. Bit by bit, bite by bite, the beasts sped forward. Through smooth stone they crunched and dirt they munched, never stopping, never halting. There one second then gone the next, the great snakes whipped past like the soil was water instead of several tons of immovable earth. In their wake were the tunnels. The remains of their poison ate into every tunnel wall they made.

Through the dirt rose the endless hissing, never dying, never ceasing. It rose and fell as the snakes swam through the ground, drawing close to the surface then diving away.

The ground bubbled by the Jaffa Factory. With a hiss that sounded more like a dragon's roar, a great snake burst from the earth. It soared through the air, its great body coiling and twisting before crashing through the white marble walls in a shower of _sound_. Its circumference was as wide as a man. It spun through the factory, the walls melting instantly from the acid dripping from the snake's teeth. Then snake met soil once more and it dived back below. It took a full minute before the lashing tail rushed down into the depths.

As if that snake's leap had been a signal, the ground bubbled across the world. SipsCo, Blackrock, Oil Island, heads burst from the ground and snakes frolicked far above. The force of their leaps, and their shear speed tore the topsoil to shreds. The world melted under their acid, and they ate, and they _ate_.

The sky was filled with rippling green scales, and the air was thick with hissing roars.

Nano was frozen in place, her hands white against the telescope. 'Oh. That, that's _really_ not good, that’s _really_ bad, Lalna.'

Across the tower, the scientist was cupping his eyes and peering through the windows. 'Yeah, it is a bit. Good thing everyone already ditched the factory, right?'

'What about us? You think they'll come this way?'

'I already set up the force field, don't worry. I'd like to see those nagas even _try_ to get in here,' Lalna said smugly. 'And since they can't, do you think we could catch one?'

Nano stopped. Her eyes shifted from the telescope to Lalna's innocent expression. '... _Why_ do you want a naga?'

'Hm. I dunno. Could be a cool pet. We could drop it on Rythian, maybe. Plus we'd have a massive supply of scales and acid to play with.'

'We aren't playing with acid!'

'Aw. Why not?'

'Just, well, it would end up bad. It'd end up burning the floor, or the force field, and the rest would all waltz in and eat our faces.'

Through the telescope, Nano spotted a flicker of movement.

'I'm more careful than _that_.'

'Uh. The ground's bubbling right outside the force field, Lalna. Yeah, that ground _is_ bubbling, what do we-'

The ground ripped itself apart. Great hunks of soil and stone were flung into the air and slammed against the force field, most shattering into thousands of pieces and crumpling against the ground. With a splintering hiss, a coiling green serpent launched directly at them with its jaws wide.

Its nose cracked against the force field, and with a startled grunt it slid to the ground.

'Oh my god, did you see that!?'

'Yes, I did, _ha_ ; did you see its face?'

'Arr, I'm here to plunder yar castle,' Lalna said, small giggles slipping between his words.

'Oh, what's this? A wall? Thunk!' Nano pointed down towards the halted snake. 'I think it's confused, it's just sitting there going "What the hell is this blue thing?!" It's probably so confused.'

Lalna grabbed onto the telescope and pointed it down at the naga. 'Yeah, I think it is. Poor thing. Think I can hit it with the railgun?'

'That one's too close. I'll give you a diamond if you can hit one at the Jaffa Factory.'

'Yeah, but it'll take skill to drop the cart without hitting the force field by mistake.'

'Eh, a diamond for the factory.'

'Two diamonds!'

'Ugh, two diamonds, _if_ you can hit the one down there as well.'

'Those are all mine anyway.' Lalna adjusted the telescope. 'What the hell is that one doing?' he muttered.

Nano waited expectantly. When Lalna didn't continue, she sighed and crossed the tower to the window. The biomes in the distance were coated with the teeming, twisting bodies, and the faint shape of the Jaffa Factory was crumbling into the distant land.

Below, the snake was just... sitting there. Its entire body was lying along the force field, jaw occasionally shifting.

'Ah, Nano?' Lalna said. His voice sounded weird, almost shaky. 'Does the naga look like it's sinking to you?'

Nano rubbed her eyes and peered at the naga. 'Yeah? A bit, I guess?'

The castle shuddered.

'...What was that?' Nano said carefully.

Lalna's response was not encouraging. 'I dunno. It's, it's probably nothing. Don't worry about it, it's fine.'

The castle shuddered again, this time enough to send Nano stumbling a bit. '...That didn't feel like nothing, Lalna.'

Lalna still kept staring through the telescope. 'Oh. Ohhh, that's not good.'

'What's not good?'

The telescope's eyepiece was tilted Nano's way. Lalna leaned back, rubbing at his shoulder. 'Take a look,' he said.

Giving the hoodie Lalna wore a concerned glance, Nano set her eye against the glass. She was disorientated for a second, and then she focused on the blue of the force field.

'What is it?'

A rush of green spat past her eyes, just for a second. She yelped, jumping back from the glass and straight into Lalna.

Nano's mentor helped Nano back upright. Yup. He looked worried. 'Uh, listen. This is just a theory, and I'm pretty sure I'm wrong, but the nagas _may_ be eating out the ground under us.'

'Oh.' Nano looked through the glass again. Zooming out, she found that it had been focused tightly on the bottom edge of the force field. 'Well, that's fine, isn't it? We've got the force field. Even if they eat under us, they can't get in.'

Lalna nodded uneasily. 'The thing is, we're still subject to gravity in here-'

The castle lurched. Nano had time to give Lalna a panicked look, before the floor _twisted_ sideways. In an instant, the floor became the wall, the wall became the sky, and the window became a floor.

There was a deep gurgling sound as the ground collapsed under the force field. The dirt sucked and crumbled and shifted outside, carving a neat rollercoaster for the ball that the force field had become. It fell, rolling and bouncing down the multitude of collapsing tunnels the nagas had carved.

Nano was thrown out the window, the castle whipping past her and vanishing in a blur of motion. She was stationary as the castle rolled upside down, stones separating at the seams and the soil being thrown about. Then spinning, she found herself staring into the darkness that they were all falling into, the force field only a few metres away and falling as she did.

When the tip of a castle tower whipped past, Nano managed to grab hold. Throat hoarse from screaming she clutched to it, even as g-forces tried to pry her arms apart as she spun. The whole castle was rolling and it didn't look like it would stop, not for a long while yet. The world outside flashed past the force field. A circle of sky. The shape of a naga diving towards them. Dirt. So much dirt and stone and crumbling worlds.

Then the whole of the world imprisoned inside _slammed_ sideways as they finally hit solid ground. From what Nano could see, the castle shattered into several large chunks, and she was being flung outwards at impossible speeds.

A second before she hit the edge of the force field, her fall boots activated. Nano's body was shoved around and her feet cracked into the force field.

Up above the tower bored down on her, the castle wall falling upside down towards her face.

'Oh _no_ you don't, _'_ she growled, dragging her portal gun from her back. A second later her jetpack activated, and she threw herself away from the force field.

A second before the tower landed on her, she dove through a portal. Then her eyes were filled with more grey stone, more dirt, and Nano launched away from that too. Portal to portal to portal, Nano rapidly dodged the falling stone.

Then her eyes were filled with glass. With a yelp, Nano's jetpack flung her aside, the glass sphere narrowly missing her arm.

Deep below, the force field generator was crushed.

Instantly the blue sphere winked away and the Nagas howled forward.

'LALNA?!' Nano screamed, the thick scaly tubes narrowly missing her. They came so close, she could feel pure _heat_ falling from the serpents. 'Lalna!? Don't be dead, _you're not allowed to be dead!_ '

Down below, Nano could hear the sound of stone settling. She ignored it, focusing on _where the hell was her mentor?!_

One naga cracked into her shoulder, teeth latching onto her portal gun and tearing it away from her. She could barely see anything beyond dripping green scales, hunks of dirt, and torn chunks of stone. Nano was flung sideways, briefly falling towards the ruined castle before her jetpack chugged into life.

As she rose, she heard soft traces of humming.

'Nooo, not _now_ , Lalna!' _As if today couldn't get any worse!_

Head tilted towards the sound, Nano dived through the storm of serpents.

_'...build it up with wood and clay...'_

The humming echoed around her, snatches of words issued between the serpent hisses.

' _...wood and clay, wood and clay...'_

It sounded like it was coming from deep in one of the tunnels, or maybe it was this tunnel, or maybe that one....

_'...build it up with wood and clay...'_

Lalna was nowhere! Nowhere in the maze of tunnels embedded in the walls, nowhere in the pit, nowhere at all!

_'...my fair lady.'_

In the depths of the giant hole, the flux sphere detonated.

Nano only had a split second to hurl herself into a ball and fling herself deep into one tunnel before the glass shrapnel spat past her. She kept rolling, unstoppable, even as the tunnel bubbled from the passage of nagas around her and the air distorted from the flux.

_'...wood and clay would wash away...'_

Something tight was in Nano's throat. Of _cours_ e Lalna would be in the one tunnel she went to hide in.

_'...wash away, wash away...'_

'Can't you sing something else?' Nano muttered into her chest. The tunnel twisted around her. Every few seconds another burst of flame came from her partially busted jetpack, flinging her further ahead.

Then in a rapid motion Nano uncurled, boots sliding against the stone and halting next to the slumped figure in the darkness.

'Lalna, snap out of it!'

If more singing counted as a proper response, Nano wouldn't have attempted slapping Lalna to wake him up. Lalna's face was as blank as a statue's, and almost as painful to hit. Yet still he mumbled those lyrics to himself, not even flinching as Nano clapped rapidly in front of his nose.

'We need to _move_ , Lalna! Please, just. Just _stop doing this!_ '

The tunnel rumbled. That was the only warning Nano had before scales ripped through the walls and fell towards them. Grabbing her mentor, she picked a random direction in the collapsing tunnels and fled. Dirt, stone, a few clumps of gravel, Nano struggled onwards, shooting out of the tunnels into the great hole where the castle lay.

Abandoned on the stones at the lip of one tunnel, the portal gun sparked brightly in the cloud of flux.

'Uh oh.'

Without a conscious thought, Nano found herself hurtling as fast as she could towards the sunlight, pulling Lalna as she went. Her jetpack screamed in her ears. Nagas still launched out of the walls, but fewer now. Some were disappearing into the depths of the tunnels, seized by the same urge Nano had to get the _hell_ away before the portal gun could ex-

There was a flash of pure darkness and flux distorting the air, the sensation of falling, and then the whole world was ripped away.

The nagas coiled around the empty hole. The girl, the boy, the castle, they were all gone. Oh well. There was more in this world left to eat.

 

 

Across another dimension, Nano and Lalna lay on the grass.

Birds flitted above, silently getting ready for the morning.  Each tweet was filled with the usual morning cheer, contrasting sharply with the chaos the pair had left behind. The dawnlight lazed beside the two unconscious humans. The flux clawed at Lalna's skin, charged by the ripple of worlds and spreading under the smoking jumper. Neither Nano or Lalna would see this for many months. As the two slept, the unfamiliar moon began its journey under the horizon.

For now, only for now, everything was peaceful.


End file.
